Customer Complaint Behaviour in Service

Abstract

It is vital for every service provider to get feedback from its customers. This is especially important when a customer has perceived an unfavourable service experience. One way to receive feedback from these customers is to encourage and make it easy for them to complain. Scholarly knowledge about complaint behaviour gives the service provider valuable insight about service problems and how to improve e.g. service offerings, service processes and interactions, to increase customer satisfaction, loyalty and profit. For that reason it is argued that customers who have an unfavourable service experience should be encouraged to complain, because if not, the provider risks losing the customer and thus future revenue. Previous research within complaint behaviour has mainly focused on the static description of motivation, antecedents, or the outcome response of complaint behaviour. The research has mainly explored different features linked to the market, the provider, the service and/or individual customer’s issues. To learn more about the customer’s complaint behaviour there is a need to take a dynamic and processual approach. This may help providers to serve customers more correctly and prevent unfavourable service experiences. The main aim of this dissertation is to enhance the knowledge of the dynamic behavioural processes in customer complaint behaviour. The dissertation will contribute to conceptualise different aspects of customer complaint behaviour. In addition, the dissertation will give an empirical grounded understanding of contextual and emotional aspects that may help to recognize the complexity of the complaint behaviour process. The contribution is a portrayal of different models describing the dynamic process of complaint behaviour including a new customer complaint behaviour model. Customer complaint behaviour is viewed as action and reaction - as a dynamic adjustment process that occurs during and/or after the service interaction, rather as a post-purchase activity. In order to capture these adjustments, a new conceptual complaint model is suggested which holds three thresholds for complaint behaviour and emphasis three different behavioural categories in the complaint process. Further, the dissertation gives an explanation of contextual and emotional issues that influence the complaint behaviour. The dissertation also includes an epistemological framework to anchor the paradigmatic belongings of service research as a basis for the design of studies in the area of customer complaint behaviour.

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